Since the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant disaster happened on March 11, 2011, we have been reading, watching and hearing limited and confusing reports from the area and news media. Starting this week, the Progressive Press will provide updates every Sunday, in order for our readers to have a better understanding of the situation. Instead of going through multiple news pages, you can read our report to track what is really happening in the hapless nuclear plant and our environment. The report will include current news from global sources and research updates, also past articles you might have missed. U.S. Said…

There are many common myths that Republicans repeat as if they are gospel. With a little research, these myths are easily debunked. Click on each link below to view the truth about each of these Myths. 1. “The purpose of the 2nd Amendment is to overthrow the Government“. 2. “Democrats didn’t read the Health Care Reform bill before they passed it“. 3. “President Obama removed the work requirements from Welfare Reform“. 4. “Obamacare will add billions to our national debt“. 5. “Obamacare is a socialist government takeover of the healthcare system“. 6. “Obama went all over the world apologizing for…

Law and justice often collide. Jury trials are the foundation of the American legal system. For more than 200 years, we have expected them to hear testimony, evaluate evidence, and deliver justice. Once again, our schools have failed us. That’s not their job. The U.S. Constitution refers to juries four times: Article III, Section 2, Clause 3 requires that “The Trial of all Crimes, except in Cases of Impeachment, shall be by Jury; and such Trial shall be held in the State where the said Crimes shall have been committed; but when not committed within any State, the Trial shall…

The Founders Tried to Protect Us From Religious Extremists America’s founders deliberately kept god out of the Constitution because they didn’t want a theocracy. But many Americans now try to force all of us to practice their faith, and prevent some from practicing different faiths. Nothing is more un-American. James Madison and Gouverneur Morris wrote our Constitution from scratch in 1787, using pen and paper. There had never before been such a document. They could have put anything they wanted into it. They chose not to use the words “god”, “Christ”, “Christian”, or “Jesus” anywhere in it. They chose not…

An Act of Treason; Not a Law The Declaration of Independence was more a process than a moment in history. This act of treason against an empire sparked the Revolutionary War and, eventually, the United States of America. It is not, and has never been, a law, but it is worth reading. This week, Americans celebrate the Declaration of Independence with picnics, parades, and fireworks. In the movie National Treasure, Nicholas Cage’s character steals the Declaration from the National Archives in order to protect it from the real bad guys. It’s a good movie, but it never really explains what…

“Nonprofit” Does Not Mean “No Money” Recent news reports claimed that the IRS targeted extra scrutiny to conservative groups applying for nonprofit tax exemptions. It was much ado about nothing. But it’s time to clarify nonprofits’ legal status and their social roles in our culture. The Internal Revenue Service’s regulation of nonprofit organizations was a major topic in the news recently, and that’s quite unusual. Apparently, an IRS manager instructed some of his staff people to pay particular attention to tax exemption applications from groups with politically-related words in their names, such as “tea party”, “patriot”, and “progressive”, to be…

Last week the weapon of mass destruction known as unregulated capitalism tragically and senselessly claimed more innocent American lives. On Wednesday, June 5th, a demolition crew was working on taking down a building in Philadelphia when suddenly the whole building collapsed, taking out the building next door with it. The adjacent building housed a Salvation Army Thrift Store. This is where most of the victims were innocently going about their days when, Without warning, the wrath of unregulated capitalism literally came crashing down upon their heads, needlessly ending 6 lives and forever altering 14 others. The contractor, Griffin Campbell Construction Co.,…

Why Won’t Americans Just Read the Constitution? Recently, Bill Maher and Michael Moore rightly criticized Congressional Republicans for their relentless obstruction of government. Plenty of liberal bloggers and their followers jumped on the bandwagon. But they all went too far in calling it treason. Republicans have tripped over each other to obstruct every budget proposal, jobs bill, issue, policy, effort, nomination, and idea that President Obama has proposed since the day of his first inauguration. In 2010, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said, at a Heritage Foundation event, that denying President Obama a second term was the GOP’S top…

More Empty Impeachment Threats from the GOP Right-wingers trembled with glee when Sen. James Inhofe said that President Obama might be impeached for the events in Benghazi. Few rank-and-file Americans understand impeachment or the odds of it happening. It does not mean that the president is fired. Most members of Congress and the media understand what impeachment means, but our schools work very hard to produce politically ignorant citizens. Impeachment means charging a public official with an offense. Impeachment does not mean firing a public official from her/his job. Constitution and Procedures The U.S. Constitution states that: The House of…

Free. Easy. All Online. Public interest in Congressional activity surged in recent years. Confusion, misinformation, and outright lies abound. But we can get accurate information without extensive web searches. All official Congressional activity is available on one website. Have you ever wanted to read the text of a bill for yourself, while Congress debates it? Do you want to know which committees consider nominees for particular cabinet positions? Or the status of the federal budget? It’s much easier to find that information than you might think. Thomas.gov. It’s easy to remember. And it’s your link to all Congressional activity. Article…

Cypriots with €100,000 euros or more in their accounts, will soon start feeling the pinch from coming bank levies, required under Cyprus’ new bailout restructuring plans. Once finalized, all depositors with accounts containing over €100,000 euros will find themselves subject to the “haircut,” with 22.5% of their account holdings being “taxed” to make up the down payment on the bailout. An additional 37.5% will be frozen for what E.U. and Cypriot officials are calling “liquidity reasons,” however unlike the previous “taxed” amount, these frozen assets will earn interest to the tune of ten percent, so long as the banks in question…

“Perhaps no words more accurately and succinctly illustrate the confusion about economics than “Monetary Sovereignty.” It is not a theory or a hypothesis or a philosophy. In its essence, it merely is a description of the way federal financing actually works.” ~Rodger Malcolm Mitchell Back in 2011, the idea of “sequestration,” or the implementing of harsh spending cuts that would automatically go into effect on March 1st, was floated in an effort to force the two political parties to get together and make a deal to work towards decreasing government debt. A telling sign for many of the increasingly broken…

Early in 2013, Seattle high school teachers boycotted their annual standardized test. This brave and necessary move has reignited public debate about the place of standardized testing. School reform has gone back and forth for over a century and a half, between the 19th century, Prussian military-industrial model to Dewey’s individualized, “special snowflake” philosophy and back again to factory- and business-preparedness treatment of children. Because neoliberalism is the winning philosophy at the moment, the worth of schools is tied to how well they can churn out identical cogs to plug in to the economic machine. Schools around the country have…

Guest Author: Pam B. Facebook.com/RealTruthNow Recently, I was talking with a new friend whom I’m just getting to know. She tends to be somewhat conservative, while I lean more toward the progressive side. When our conversation drifted to politics, somehow the dreaded word “socialism” came up. My friend seemed totally shocked when I said “All socialism isn’t bad”. She became very serious and replied “So you want to take money away from the rich and give to the poor?” I smiled and said “No, not at all. Why do you think socialism means taking money from the rich and giving…

Long before the Affordable Care Act was signed into law, you were paying for other people’s healthcare in many different ways. When you pay insurance premiums, that money doesn’t only go towards your healthcare, it helps pay medical costs for every person insured by that company. Likewise, when someone without health insurance received care in an emergency room, and they couldn’t pay their bills, the hospital didn’t just write off those costs. They passed that expense on to you and every other patient in the form of higher medical costs, higher insurance premiums, and higher deductibles. However, the Affordable Health…

Myth: “Gun control laws only affect law-abiding citizens. Criminals can just ignore gun control laws.” This can be easily disproved. Background checks, like in the Brady Law, do not prohibit law-abiding citizens from buying guns, but they do succeed at making it much harder for a criminal to get a firearm. In 1999 alone, nation-wide background checks combined with waiting periods, stopped 200,000 gun sales to felons and other prohibited people. Read about it here. The Brady Law was intended to make it harder for criminals to easily obtain a gun but background checks have had the added effect of leading to…

It’s amazing that we still have to explain this, but many people still insist with great certainty that President Obama is a Muslim, without offering any evidence to support this claim. First off, let me say that if President Obama were indeed a Muslim, it would not disqualify him from being president nor would it imply that he is not a loyal American. There is nothing in the US Constitution that indicates Presidents will be tested on their religious beliefs. Additionally, the term “Muslim” should not be used as an insult or to imply that someone supports terrorism. Having said that, I am…

Republicans, many of whom have spent decades telling us Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a communist, now suddenly feel that it gives them credibility on social and racial issues if they maintain that Dr. King was a Republican. Once this claim was made, it spread like wildfire through the conservative media and has been reported extensively on conservative web sites and Facebook pages. The only problem is, it’s not true. Although his father, Martin Luther King Sr. had registered as a Republican, there is no evidence that MLK Jr. was ever a Republican. He never endorsed any Republican candidate, and…

Myth: “Wealthy people are job creators. When you give tax cuts to the wealthy, it creates jobs. When you raise their taxes, it destroys jobs.” When we look at the US economic history, overall economic growth has been stronger during periods of higher tax rates. After Ronald Reagan cut taxes 25% in 1981, unemployment continued to rise for another year and a half and the budget deficit tripled. Two years after the Reagan tax cuts, unemployment was still higher than when he took office. Bill Clinton raised taxes on the wealthiest 1% of Americans (called the biggest tax increase in history at…

In the debate about gun control, many gun enthusiasts argue that the Second Amendment to the Constitution was written, not for the purposes of hunting or even self-defense, but specifically to give people the ability to rise up against the government when they no longer support that government. These gun enthusiasts further hold the reference to the word militia in the Second Amendment refers to the armed populace in general. As such, this militia has the right to own the type of weapons that would be required to overthrow the government if need be. Let’s take a look at exactly what the…